Alpha
by Amanda the Huntress
Summary: Maximum Ride wasn't the only creation to escape the School- nor was she the most important. Subject Alpha 1033 is about to learn that there is life beyond the labs of the School, and there is more to life than pain and fear. She will find the world beyond. And she will find that the world needs her. Hang on tight. *TEMPORARILY DISCONTINUED*


**ONE**

Bright lights flashed into my crate and the handlers rattled the bars violently, jarring me out of my fitful sleep. I had been curled up on the cold, knobbly floor of a bent-up wire dog crate on the concrete floor, trying desperately to sleep, when the scientists came for me again.

I didn't know what time it was, nor where I was now, as I realized as I looked around through the bars. The room was unlike the containment area I was normally kept in- usually, I was in a ten-by-ten foot solid concrete room with a reenforced metal door. This one was much larger, with a waxed floor of ceramic tiles and high walls of cinder blocks and a ceiling of acoustic tile. The handler rattled my cage again, making me whack against the sides as I struggled onto my hands and knees.

"Get _up,_" he growled, kicking the crate and shining his glaringly bright flashlight in my face again. I shielded my eyes and carefully moved to the front of the crate, and at last, the handler took the hint and unlatched it for me. On unsteady legs, I carefully got to my feet outside my crate, not daring to move any further than that.

This was my existence. Each day, I would be exposed to the many tests and lights and chemicals of the School, my home. I have no memory of anything before this massive super-complex of labs, only the endless days and nights of injections, shock treatments, various tests, and surgeries. By night, I was shoved back into my crate and tossed some food, and if I was lucky, I would be left alone for a few hours. If not, testing would continue without stop through the night.

This was all I knew.

"Alpha One-Zero-Three-Three, please proceed onto the marked red area," a crisp electronic female voice echoed through the chamber. Robotically, I moved onto the big red square a few paces in front of me, and watched as dozens of little rolling machines entered the room through doors that lined the walls. My handlers stepped back and moved out of the room, taking my crate with them and slamming the doors behind them. The machines moved into a formation all around the room, then settled and stopped. A bright spotlight turned on, highlighting a circle on the floor on the other end of the room.

"Alpha One-Zero-Three-Three, proceed to the marked blue area," the voice droned. I took off.

Immediately, the machines sprang into action. One of them turned a turret-like barrel my way and a coil of something flew out, hitting me in the chest. A painful jolt of electricity blasted me to my knees, stunned, and other machines were quick to follow suit, aiming at me and preparing to fire.

My breath gone from the blast, I fell flat to the ground gasping, and rolled. The taser coils landed only just behind me as I moved, and I felt the floor heat up with their efforts to catch me. Tearing off the thin wire before it could shock me again, I leaped to my feet and sprang forward, determined to get out of here quickly.

The machines followed fast, forming a wall to block my way, and as I tried to jump over one, it shot out cords of sticky fluid that coagulated rapidly into dense chords. I fell flat on my face, my legs tied together to the knees.

The machines advanced, threatening more horrors to my prone form. I backed up a little, dragging my trapped legs behind me. Thinking fast, I whipped my legs up and sideways, flicking the sticky threads up and around the machine that shot them. Heaving my knees to my chest, I brought the machine up close, then kicked it hard two-legged into its companions, knocking it off of its wheels and sending it and two others crashing away. The chords broke, but my legs were still bound.

One of the machines had managed to get behind me. It had a blade-like appendage that whipped out suddenly at my head, and I only just flattened in time, watching the blade stab the air inches before my face. It backed off fast, then rolled forward at double speed to attack again. The blade slashed for my head again.

Only to slice through the bonds between my legs. I had quickly flipped my legs up over my head as the blade came in, positioning them perfectly for the knife to free them. Rolling them back into proper position, I rolled onto my belly and launched up from the ground, getting on top of the machine. It squirted up more web-fluid to either side of my seat, and tried to throw me off by moving its top turret barrel up and down rapidly. I stood up on the barrel, and leaped off just as it was violently shooting upwards.

I was launched halfway across the room, and just barely landed and rolled unharmed. From there, the machines were thinner and easier to dodge, and I nearly made it to the blue circle.

Then another got in my way.

I was tasered again in the legs- hard. With an involuntary cry, I fell and helplessly lay while my right leg spasmed under the powerful electric shock. Gritting my teeth, I yanked the wire off of my leg and threw it back at the machine, and to my surprise, the coiled end hit it, and a spray of sparks went up as the whole thing short-circuited. I crawled victoriously onto the blue circle.

A hard shock had me blacked out.

* * *

I don't know how long that day lasted. It was just like any other day at the School, lonely and cold, alternating between my dog crate and the testing chambers and surgical labs. I don't know what they were trying to do to me, or prove, or create, or what my purpose was at all. I was all alone each time, with the only other people I ever saw being the handlers and the scientist. And the occasional 'other'.

I had seen glimpses of the 'other' test subjects here at the School, but each time the handlers caught me looking, they would kick my cage and tell me not to mind the 'failures', as they called them. Some truly looked like failures, with small ribcages, or near-transparent skin, or other deformities. But some I could not understand. Some were powerful, like the ones that could turn from human to man-wolf in seconds, with enough strength to rend steel. Or perhaps one I had caught a glimpse of, a wiry, brown-haired girl, with a huge pair of beautiful wings like an eagle, the same color as her hair. I knew she was strong- I had seen her fight the scientists before. It took many to subdue her.

But something was happening that I didn't know about today. As I curled up on the bottom of the dog crate, sore and exhausted, I heard shouting from somewhere, badly muffled by the concrete walls. An alarm went off in another wing, and I could hear running feet.

A red light began to flash just outside the door of the room my crate rested in. Curious of this anomaly, I dragged myself upright into a crouching position and peered out through the bars, trying to make out what was happening outside the door through that tiny window.

A pair of light eyes appeared in that window, and I blinked in surprise. The door opened, revealing a tall man in a starched white lab coat and black framed glasses with dark hair. He strode in authoritatively and unlatched my cage, motioning for me to come out. Confused, I crawled out into the open, where he promptly tore off the thin paper robe that I always wore. I gasped in surprise as the cold air hit my bare skin, and heard something hit the floor next to me.

"Put these on," the man ordered, and I looked to my side to see a uniform like my handler's on the floor beside me. Still crouched, I carefully picked up the shirt with a puzzled look on my face. I didn't know how to put it on.

The man sighed and put a hand under my arm, forcing me to stand up. Working quickly, he unbuttoned the shirt partway and pulled it over my head, guiding my arms through the sleeves and re-buttoning it back up tightly. He also had to help me with the pants, and finished with the tightly-buckled belt with a bright flashlight and a taser clipped to it. The vest I could handle- it was similar enough to the paper thing I was used to wearing all my life.

"Come with me," he commanded, moving out the door quickly. I followed unthinkingly, used to obeying every order that I was given. The man strode rapidly down the red-flashing hallways, stopping at intersections and looking around before pulling me along further. He seemed tense and worried somehow, and I didn't know why.

Shouts erupted behind us. The man whirled around, his white coat flapping, and gasped, before gripping my arm and sprinting. I didn't look back, only knowing to follow that powerful grip wherever it took me. We ran on and on, through the sterile hallways, until I caught a scent that I rarely smelled.

Fresh air.

The man guiding me was sweating and breathing hard, while I stayed by his side, unfazed by the race. The air around us changed temperature, growing cooler, with a hint of moisture to it. Then we came to a stop right before a set of double doors, inside a large room that was very different from what I had seen.

There was carpet on the floor- I knew what it was called because my handlers had told me once, when I saw their lounge. A desk was in one corner, and several couches in the other, with a stand between them holding a pot and several mugs. I could smell a rich, slightly bitter something from that. But another scent also arrested my nose.

Blood.

There were multiple bodies on the floor, unmoving, and leaking out the red fluid. A woman behind the desk lay splayed forward on its surface, her eyes shut and a large red stain spreading across her back. Two men in black uniforms lay sprawled on either side of the glass doors, eyes wide, with one holding a firearm in one loosely-clenched hand. I stepped back, feeling a twinge of fear.

"Come on," the man gripping my arm said, tugging me towards the double doors. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move. It was not the bodies that had me stopped.

It was the doors hanging wide open.

The man was going to take me out of the School.

"No," I whispered, my fear growing. Outside? I didn't know outside existed. What if there was nothing there? What would happen? I was scared. I didn't know what to do. I pulled away from the man, eyes wide.

He muttered to himself before pulling out a small square of gauze. I caught a whiff of something flowery coming off of it.

"Come with me," he said in a slightly angered tone. The order was clear. I was programmed to obey. But he was taking me out of the School. I was programmed to stay. My head involuntarily shook side to side.

More shouts echoed from the hallways branching out of the room, and I could hear many, many people coming. The dark-haired man swore, looking around with his heart rate audibly increasing. I simply stood.

Then the gauze went over my nose.

Not knowing what it would do, I didn't move. I didn't think to. Immediately, I began to feel light and dizzy, with my head spinning. For a moment, I stayed on my feet. Then I lost feeling in my limbs, and I felt a hand pressing my back, my head lolling backwards. My vision clouded over, and the last thing I felt was a brush of cool air across my face.

Then my eyes closed and everything went black.


End file.
